More prohibitions on possessing videos on their way. I hate to think how
many people will be instantly criminalised by their Spanish bull fighting
home videos. There must be hours of footage in various bull fighting films
and documentaries recorded off TV over the years. Sounds like another badly
thought out piece of legislation ready to be used for purposes that it was
not intended for.

The Government have just published a draft Animal Welfare Bill at:
www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm62/6252/6252.pdf

The section on Fighting etc includes

(2) A person commits an offence if, without lawful authority or excuse,
He:

(a) is present at an animal fight;

(b) makes a recording of an animal fight

(c) has in his possession or distributes:

(i) a recording of an animal fight,

(ii) a copy of such a recording, or

(iii) material from such a recording

(d) publishes material from a recording of an animal fight

26th August

Civil Offenses

A
ludicrously overblown news story with presumably deliberate failure to
differentiate between child porn and adult porn. And to cap it all we have a
shameful Lib Dem leading the witch hunt.

At least 16 civil servants have been sacked and
more than 200 disciplined over the downloading of internet porn in the
office.

Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions are believed to have called
up 2.3 million pages of pornographic material over eight months.

These are said to include 18,000 images (wow! that's
an average of 2 pictures per person per week)

A police investigation has
so far resulted in one worker being convicted and put on the sex offenders'
register after accessing child pornography. Officers are looking at two
similar cases.

As well as those who have been ordered to leave, three members of staff
have resigned and 211 employees have faced internal disciplinary action.

The crackdown started last December after a civil servant was caught
downloading porn on his office computer. A check made on all the computers
of the department's 140,000 staff found nearly 600,000 pornographic images
had been called up in June and July alone.

Shameful Liberal Democrat work and pensions
spokesman Steve Webb said: Any public servant who accesses porn sites at
work should lose their job. There has to be a zero tolerance approach. (Any politician who thinks that such a minor misdemeanour
should be punished with the sack should lose their job)

9th August

Dover Arsehole

I
somehow think that if mankind had the choice of giving up either religion or
computer games then I know which would be my vote to make for a more
peaceful world.

Based on an article from Kent on Sunday

The shameful Bishop of Dover has called for violent
computers games to be banned following claims linking a now infamous title
with a teenager’s death. Manhunt, which awards the player points for
killing opponents in as grisly a way as possible, has already been outlawed
in New Zealand and is facing legal action in America. The Entertainment and
Leisure Software Publishers Association said they had fallen victim to a
media ‘witch hunt’.

The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Rev Stephen Venner, said it was time action was
taken to stamp out ‘evil and ‘sick’ games. He said: The idea that the
more people you kill and the more brutal the killing the more points you
score just seems evil. Anybody playing these games is allowing some of the
worst parts of their personality to come to the fore. I cannot see any
justification for allowing these games to be on sale at all. It treats
other human beings as objects simply to be despatched with, which is the
worst sort of abuse imaginable. We are in a society where human rights and
freedom seem to be the end of all we seek, and in any civilsed society there
must be limits to the extent that people can degrade themselves and others.

Detectives investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy in a Leicester park
have rejected any link with a violent computer game. Stefan Pakeerah was
beaten and stabbed to death by Warren Leblanc, 17, but the motive, say
police, was robbery.

Leicestershire police have confirmed a copy of the game was found, but in
Stefan's' bedroom and not with Leblanc. Stefan's parents blamed the game,
which was withdrawn by some high street retailers, following the court case.

A Leicestershire constabulary spokesperson said: Police investigations
did not uncover any connections to the computer game. We can confirm the
game was not found in Warren Leblanc's room, it was found in Stefan
Pakeerah's room.

In the wake of Leblanc's guilty plea, several stores withdrew Manhunt from
sale. But sales at HMV, which has continued to sell the game, have
reportedly risen.

Stefan's mother, Giselle, who called for violent computer games to be
banned, claimed her son only had the game because it had been lent to him by
Leblanc.

For its part, the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers' Association
(Elspa), the industry body for the video game industry, has written to Home
Secretary David Blunkett about the media coverage of the case.

We have been very concerned recently about the misleading and
disingenuous reporting about the effects of playing interactive games
software," said Elspa. As you will know, despite many research
projects into the effects of screen violence, some of which have been
undertaken by eminent academics in their field, no link with violent
behaviour has been found.

5th August

War Mongering & War Funding

From
www.publishingnews.co.uk

Britain's main online retailer has decided not to sell a book that is
widely available on the high street. It is a story about a potential risk, a
threat that now arguably passes to W H Smith, Waterstone’s, Tesco online and
Borders – all of which are selling the title and all surely worth a few
million to a litigant and, in the case of the latter, a global, US-owned
company that could result in a lot of publicity.

Initially, Amazon said that lawyer acting for the Bin Mahfouz family,
sent a warning shot across the bows of Amazon.co.uk in the form of a letter
which led to the online retailer’s decision not to sell Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud, just published by Gibson Square.

Amazon released a statement which reads: It is unfortunate that
Amazon.co.uk is not able to carry the book House of Bush, House of Saud,
on its web site. However, UK libel law is prohibitively restrictive, and
booksellers and retailers can be held responsible for libelous statements in
books as if they had published the statement themselves. Amazon.co.uk is on
notice that this book may contain defamatory content. Because it is
impossible for us to defend or disprove claims of libel for the millions of
titles we carry, we made the difficult decision to adhere to standard UK
industry practice and remove this book from our Amazon.co.uk catalogue.

However, on Tuesday this week, another lawyer acting for the Bin Mahfouz
family told PN: We have not written to Amazon concerning Craig
Unger’s book. We have been in touch with them on other matters. Those
other matters refer to the book Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles
Brisard and Gillaume Dasquie.

Amazon admitted its mistake, but in a further statement said:
Amazon.co.uk is on notice that House of Bush, House of Saud may
contain defamatory content from a variety of sources. It pointed out
that the ‘innocent dissemination’ defence, as outlined in the 1996
Defamation Act, was very weak.

Gibson Square’s MD, Martin Rynja, described the situation as
ludicrous and paradoxical – you can buy the book from Amazon.com, but not
from Amazon.co.uk. He also believes Amazon.com is as liable as its UK
wing, if the sale is made in the UK. Amazon’s spokesman confirmed that the
book was on sale from Amazon.com because under the US constitution’s
protections for free expression, booksellers cannot be held liable for the
contents of books and other expressive materials published by others simply
for making them available to the public for sale.

The Daily Telegraph attacked Random House’s decision not to
publish the book, leading to this response from Master: Random House
received advice from two legal advisors that in the light of successful
libel actions, recently brought by Saudi families separately against
Associated Newspapers and the European edition of the Wall Street Journal,
suggestions of links between Saudi families and the funding of terrorism
could not be realistically defended in the UK.’

Needless to say, the publicity following Amazon’s decision and the
author’s visit last week has not harmed sales. We had to up the initial
print run three times while the book was being subbed, Rynja told PN.
After the first print run was fixed we had to put through a reprint and,
within the space of two days, orders had again doubled. We’ve now just
reprinted again.

Master says that the most serious allegations have been removed from
Gibson Square’s text. All the chains have taken the title and at Borders,
Marketing Manager Matt Taylor said: It’s selling well. We’ve had to order
three times our original subscription. But what of the possible threat
of legal action? A Smith’s spokesman said: We don’t believe in censoring
the products we put on our shelves. Although we appreciate that it is a book
of the moment, commercially this is not a key title for us.

Thanks to Alan

Did you spot that interesting bit down towards the
bottom of the article? If the British version omits the most serious
allegations, we won't really be getting Craig Unger's book in this country,
but just a bowdlerised version. Maybe we still need to order it from
America.

Incidentally, I wouldn't be too surprised if some of the Yank suppliers
refuse to provide it to customers in this septic isle. This is what
amazon.com did with Kitty Kelley's tome about the royal family.

Police involved in the Stefan Pakeerah murder case have revealed that the
copy of Manhunt at the centre of a tabloid media frenzy last week was found
in the possession of the victim, not the killer.

Newspapers and TV news channels gave significant coverage to the case last
week, when the mother of the victim claimed that 17-year-old killer Warren
LeBlanc had been "obsessed" with the ultra-violent Rockstar game.

However, according to a spokesperson for Leicestershire Constabulary, the
police division which investigated the murder, the link is even more tenuous
than was reported previously - with the game being found not in the room of
the murderer, but of the victim.

The video game was not found in Warren LeBlanc's room, it was found in
Stefan Pakeerah's room, the spokesperson said today. Leicestershire
Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not
uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was
robbery.

While it's still entirely plausible that LeBlanc was obsessed with the game,
as he and Pakeerah were friends, this new information does raise questions
about how the 14-year-old Pakeerah was able to obtain a copy of the 18-rated
game; and also about the conduct of the British media in reporting on the
story.

The tabloid press, in particular the extremist right-wing Daily Mail
newspaper, have already been heavily criticised for ignoring the police
reports and prosecution statements which gave the motive for the murder as
robbery, with LeBlanc killing his younger friend in order to pay back a
drugs-related debt. Few tabloid stories made any mention of the drugs angle.

The news will also pour cold water on the intentions of American lawyer Jack
Thompson, infamous for his chasing of cases relating to what he judges to be
immoral media. Thompson apparently plans to bring a major lawsuit on behalf
of the Pakeerah family against Rockstar; the revelation that the game
belonged to their son, not to the killer, may well mean that this case is
quietly dropped.

30th July

Manhunt Witchhunt

Based on an article from
The Times

Nutter outrage yesterday forced a video game
off the shelves after it was blamed for the murder of a 14-year-old boy by
an older friend.

Dixons and the Game chain removed from sale Manhunt, a game which awards
players points for inflicting the most grisly death possible.

The mother of Stefan Pakeerah, who was battered with a hammer and
stabbed to death, said her son’s killer was “obsessed” by the game.

Dixons said it had withdrawn the game out of respect for Stefan’s parents,
and in response to complaints from customers. Other retailers, including WH
Smith, are considering whether to withdraw the top-selling game, which
should only be sold to customers over the age of 18. It has already been
banned in New Zealand.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport told shop managers that they
faced up to six months in jail if they supplied 18-rated computer games to
anyone under the legal age. But although experts insisted there was no proof
that computer games could influence the behaviour of adolescents, ministers
appear to be on a collision course with Britain’s £2 billion computer game
industry.

Shameful
Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, called on games
manufacturers and retailers to take action to prevent children being exposed
to the “extreme violence” of Manhunt and other titles.
The Pakeerah family’s local Leicester MP, Hewitt had taken a special
interest in the case and said more must be done to protect children.

Hewitt said: As a mother myself I share her (Mrs Pakeerah’s) anxiety
about the violent computer games that too many teenagers are exposed to. It is illegal for retailers to sell these games to under 18s, but we all
need to do more — manufacturers, retailers, parents and schools — to protect
our young people from immersing themselves in images of extreme violence.”

Games are monitored by the BBFC, and the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers
Association (Elspa). Ratings are only compulsory under the Video Recordings
Act (1984) for games that contain violence or sexual activity.

Manhunt was awarded a rating of 18,
for its violence. Elspa said yesterday that it had
no plans to change its ratings.
Roger Bennett, Elspa’s director-general, said that Hewitt and Dixons were
indulging in “kneejerk” reactions. It has been considerably overblown. There is no substantive
evidence in this case to link this tragic event to the fact he was playing a
game. The police have confirmed that they found Manhunt in his room, but
there was no mention of it during the court case.

He said that he believed Stefan’s parents had jumped to the wrong
conclusion. There are always scapegoats. Inevitably the family will be
searching for explanations and they have come to the conclusion, wrongly, in
our view, that a game was responsible.

Hewitt’s department claimed that Britain had
the most restrictive video
classification system in the world and noted that there was no evidence
that Manhunt had been sold to a minor.

Guy Cumberbatch, a psychologist who specialises in violence and the media,
said that he was sceptical as to whether violence in computer games could be
linked to real-life violence. He said: The claim that the boy who killed
Stefan was obsessed with the game came from Stefan’s mother. We don’t know
whether he was obsessed or not. The connection has come from the distressed
parents.

The creator of Manhunt has become one of Scotland’s great hi-tech success
stories and the company fiercely defended its products.
The Leith-based Rockstar North, which also produces the top-selling Grand
Theft Auto games, said Manhunt was intended for a “mature” audience and had
been cleared with an 18 rating by the BBFC.

A consumer boycott of Manhunt could threaten Scotland’s thriving computer
games industry. Rockstar North employs about 50 software experts and the Grand Theft Auto series has generated £1 billion worldwide.

25th July

Dodgy Figures

Just
to put things in perspective 10,000 requests a day is hardly very many. The
Melon Farmers get an average of 8000 page requests a day. The amount of spam
I get related to the website suggests that there an awful lot of spiders out
there scanning every web site that they can get hold of. The figures
therefore suggest that this is total non-story

BT insists that any attempt to identify the number of people accessing
illegal content on the Internet is "pure speculation".

Its response follows calls for independent analysis of its Cleanfeed Web
filtering system because of concerns that the data might be giving a
misleading picture of the scale of Internet child abuse.

Some media reports claimed thousands of people were accessing child
pornography in the UK. Yesterday, ISPA - the trade group for the UK's ISPs -
said it wanted to examine the Cleanfeed stats, so that "appropriately
informed comment on the system and the data that has been published".

Only then will we be in a position to ascertain if and how many people
are actually trying to access these websites and hence understand the true
scale of the problem, ISPA said.

Today, BT has responded to ISPA, acknowledging that the 230,000 attempts
to access banned sites does include both "deliberate and accidental attempts
to access blocked sites as well as multiple attempts".

BT's Statement in Full

From Mike Galvin, BT Director of Internet Operations

"BT has been totally clear about the figures. Basically, there was an
average of 10,000 blocks a day between 21 June and 13 July but the figure
was 23,000 a day during the last week when the test period had ended and
the system was fully in place. These figures include both deliberate and
accidental attempts to access blocked sites as well as multiple attempts.
The figures give no indication of the intent behind an access attempt so
any claim to identify the number of people from the number of blocked
visits is pure speculation.

"BT has always said the technology is not a total solution to this
challenging problem, but it is a start. BT agrees with ISPA that the IWF
has made great progress with tackling the hosting of such sites in the UK
and BT sees this technology as a step forward. It is different in that it
tackles the problem from another angle by preventing people from
deliberately or accidentally sites including those located overseas.

"The fight against child abuse is a global one and so it is important
that everyone works as closely as they can with the relevant law
enforcement agencies and bodies such as the IWF. As a result, we have said
we are willing to share the technology with other service providers on a
non commercial basis and so we look forward to discussions with them."

Based on an article from The Register and first spotted on the Cut blog

Vodafone UK has defended the early introduction of adult content filters for its mobile phone users, saying that the system is necessary to protect children.

The operator launched the filters with great fanfare last week, five months ahead of the mobile phone industry's self-imposed deadline. However, aside from a smattering of applause from child protection lobbyists, the response to the launch has been
critical.

Al Russell, head of content services at Vodafone, says the company wants parents and guardians to feel that their kids are safe using Vodafone's services. This is not an area for compromise. The choice was, do we want to wait to protect minors
until the end of the year, or do we implement a transparent and pragmatic system now?

Other operators have written the move off as a publicity stunt, pointing out that there is not much competitive advantage in launching first. Their point was made for them: Vodafone has set the system up so that subscribers must prove that they are
18 to be gain access to restricted sites. However, deficiencies in the software meant large sections of the Net were classified as 18+ classification, regardless of their content.

The filtering system uses a rating dis-service bought in from a third party, which Vodafone is, as yet, reluctant to name. It uses a combination of a database of classified sites, and a dynamic rating service.

Andre Pyler, Vodafone's man on the ground, says the system is classifying everything except for half a per cent of user-requested URLs. In such cases, the URL is sent to a human operator for manual classification.

However, a glitch at launch meant subscribers trying to access pages that were unavailable for other reasons ended up seeing a restricted access notification, instead of a '404 not found' message. Also, the filter automatically barred sites that it
couldn't automatically classify. The company says it has fixed both problems, and that complaints have dropped off substantially.

The industry-wide decision to introduce self regulation was prompted by the usual hints from government that life would be oh-so-much-more-complicated if it had to get involved. Vodafone says it was also contacted by several "charity stakeholders",
who were just as keen to see some kind of restriction on the access to porn and betting sites.

By the end of 2004, all the operators in the UK will have content regulation, with the still-to-be-appointed Independent Content Board (ICB, as it will be known) taking responsibility for rating content.

The ICB, or the lack of the ICB, is also proving controversial. Although Russell insists Vodafone does not see its role as that of censor, he concedes that the situation will be more comfortable when a third party is responsible for rating content,
and there is clear accountability in place.

Vodafone's new mobile content filtering system, designed to stop children
accessing Web nasties with their mobiles, raises more questions than it
answers.

In January, the major UK operators agreed to implement a content
filtering system, with an independent body in place to rate content, by the
end of the year. Vodafone has launched its filtering system five months
early, presumably hoping to steal a media victory from under the noses of
its rivals.

Child protection groups have welcomed the Voda's decision to begin
content filtering before the December deadline, but early indications are
that the operator has bitten off more than it can chew.

The Register has been flooded with reports of technical
difficulties. Some Vodafone users say they have been unable to access
corporate email - Vodafone's Blackberry service was apparently disrupted for
a time. Others have been unable to access the Sky News website. Access to
pornography, however, does not appear to have been universally restricted.

Vodafone argues that teething troubles are to be expected when a system
like this goes live to so many users. It is less forthcoming with
explanations of how the system should work, once the problems have been
ironed out.

How are sites classified? How accurate is that classification, and what
should a site do if it thinks it has been unfairly grouped under the 'adult'
banner. Why does Vodafone think it can decide what is appropriate content -
after all, who is it answerable to? Site operators who feel they have been
unfairly or inaccurately classified can appeal to Vodafone to change its
mind. But what is the appeals process. And what if a publisher sued Voda for
defamation if its website was wrongly tagged as adult content.

Vodafone's customers would like to know the answers. So, it seems would
Vodafone. Confusion reigns within the company, which was unable to provide
answers to some basic questions about the way the service operates.

Despite two days of calling, we have been unable to determine who at
Vodafone is responsible for classifying material; nor have we been able to
confirm how the operator is filtering content.

Some users report that they have been unable to access corporate email -
Vodafone's Blackberry service was apparently disrupted for a time. Others
say that they have been unable to access the Sky News website.

Calls to customer services elicit the explanation that some of the news
is deemed too violent for children. An alternative suggestion was that Sky
News has a gambling section, which would fall under the banner of restricted
access, and cause the site to be barred.

Both explanations are silly. Firstly, whole news sites are blocked
because of one story or one section, and secondly, anyone who wants their
16-year old to be able to access the news, has to register them as being
over 18. This delivers access to the very sites they are supposed to be
protected from.

The problem seems to stem from the binary nature of the classification
scheme. So far as we can determine, a site is either universal, or it is
adult. There is no middle ground.

There is a way round this: as with services like Bango, content providers
are asked to classify their own content as either suitable for universal
access, or for adults only. Webmasters can divide their site along these
lines and allocate content accordingly. The difference is that Bango asks
its client content providers to classify their material like this. Vodafone
is asking it of the entire Web.

A spokeswoman for T-Mobile told El Reg that any competitive
advantage Vodafone hopes to gain with the move would be short lived. This
doesn't make Vodafone any more worthy that any of the rest of us. We are all
working on the same systems. T-Mobile has always planned to implement its
filtering system once the classification body is in place. It is hard to see
how we could do it any other way."

T-Mobile anticipates that this body would be appointed in the next few
months. In the meantime, Vodafone is out on its own, and its progress is
being watched closely.

Especially by Vodafone's customers, many of whom are already losing
patience.

5th July

Dodgy Signals

I
wonder why Vodafone are so keen on getting credit card details. If an
obvious adult walks into a vodafone shop then surely they have proved their
age.

I am concerned that my wife who does not have a credit card will be
unjustifiably be denied her human rights by Vodafone.

Vodafone has begun barring customers from reaching adult Websites through
their handsets, saying the move is aimed primarily at protecting children.
Vodafone customers will have to prove now that they are over 18 before the
restrictions are lifted.

We have seen the popularity of mobile Internet to access things like
chatrooms, said Vodafone chief of content services Al Russell,
announcing the new policy, and if we didn’t take action it was inevitable
that minors would be exposed to adult services. An estimated 16.5
million out of 47.5 million British mobile phones have some kind of Internet
access, according to several published reports.

The restrictions also cover gambling sites and Internet chatrooms that
are unmonitored or otherwise deemed for adults, Vodafone said announcing the
new policy. Other than proof of age, the wireless giant added, the blocks go
on and stay on until a customer opts in and asks for the blocks to come off.
If they want the blocks off, Vodafone said, they will have to provide credit
card details for verification, online, on the phone, or at a Vodafone store.

Vodafone said it is using a filter to look for particular words and
content to pick off adult Websites and block them. The company claims to be
the first mobile operator around the world to do this, seven months after
the British mobile industry agreed to take action to block porn sites.

4th July

Ethically Noxious Bankers

As reported on the excellent
Cut blog

The banks are expanding their blacklist of internet businesses to includes
sites which publish images of sexual violence, or promote racism or
terrorism, effectively denying them the use of credit card facilities,
reports The Guardian. The new guidelines, which at this time remain
advisory, were published earlier this week by the Association for Payment
Clearing Services, which represents the major banks and building societies,
and is in part a response to intensifying concerns about the apparent
inability of the state and the law to regulate online content.

The guidelines state:
Banks provide facilities to internet merchants that
enable them to accept card payments for content and merchandise. [We]
deplore the abuse of these facilities on ethical, legal and sound business
grounds. Banks will not knowingly do business with internet sites that sell
content/merchandise inciting, advocating or perpetuating activities such as
child pornography, racism, terrorism and violence against persons, including
scenes of sexual violence.

Sandra Quinn, a spokeswoman for the
shameful APACS,
said: We are not setting ourselves up as moral arbiters.
BUT we
have to be sure we are doing all we can about preventing the spread of such
extreme images. We had no objections from our members on the grounds of
[whether this was] censorship. But we don't want to be any more
prescriptive. It's a grey area.